A typical or standard skateboard used for recreational purposes comprises a generally elongated flat platform on which the user or rider stands and wheel assemblies or trucks mounted below the platform. While the axles upon which the wheels rotate are normally parallel to one another and perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the platform, the trucks are provided with a pivot axis which is angled with respect to the platform so that tilting of the platform about its longitudinal axis, which extends in the direction of normal rolling movement, results in pivoting or steering movement of the wheels about a vertical axis. These "steerable" trucks allow the rider to use side-to-side tilting of the platform to steer or control the board. Tilting the board to steer has the additional advantage of facilitating the balance of the rider by providing a platform which is effectively "banked" into the turn to compensate for the centrifugal force encountered during the turn. Because of the unitary nature of a typical platform the wheel trucks are not independently steerable, that is, one set of trucks cannot be steered without steering the other as well. The present invention provides an articulating connector to allow independent movement between two respective board platforms and the respective trucks.
Skilled skateboard riders often perform tricks and stunts in which the rider, the board, or both may leave the ground. To facilitate such activities, it may be desirable to incorporate a degree of "springiness" or "liveliness" into a board. While unitary platforms of boards are often constructed from resilient materials such as impregnated fiberglass or similar composites, such a construction creates a board with a relatively fixed degree of resilience controlling vertical bending and does not generally provide for independent transverse relative steering movement of the front and rear portions of the board.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,267 to Lipscomb describes a skateboard with separate sections which are independently pivotable about a common longitudinally extending horizontal axis and which are connected together at a center point through a similarly oriented horizontal pivot axis. U.S. Pat. No. 4,082,306 to Sheldon describes a skateboard somewhat similar to that of Lipscomb, in which two respective end platforms are independently pivotable about a horizontal axis and are connected by a longitudinally extending torsion bar. U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,626 to Smith et al. describes a skateboard with separately pivotable end platform sections, each being pivotable about it own vertical axis located at a respective end of a longitudinal connecting member between the end platform sections. It must be noted that when using such a vertical axis with respective platform portions, which are normally oriented in the same plane, sufficient space must be provided between the two platforms so that there is no interference between the platforms as they are pivoted with respect to one another.